From Season to Season

The Second Letter to the Thessalonians, which is among the source texts used for the Readings of the Thirty-Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (Cycle C) is something of a problematic biblical text. Although it has traditionally been attributed to Saint Paul, writing with Saint Barnabas and Saint Silvanus/Silas (cf. 2 Thess 1:1 ), most modern scholars believe that this text (among others) was written several years after Paul’s martyrdom. Whether this letter was written by Paul or by those who had been formed by the Apostle is, however, in many ways irrelevant to the meaning of the text for the Church today. The text itself, which was certainly known to Marcion and Saint Polycarp (in the mid-second century), describes a local community that was experiencing persecution or dangers from heretical (i.e. gnostic) movements and which was at danger of losing its focus on the Faith that Paul and his collaborators had handed over to the community by their preaching and witness (cf. Raymond Brown,...

Several weeks ago, the pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Master in Los Angeles asked if I would preach at his church's Reformation Sunday service, offering a Catholic perspective on Reformation. Below is the text of the reflection I prepared for that community's celebration which included variations on texts from the Roman Missal (e.g. the Collect for the Mass of Christian Unity, the Renewal of Baptismal Promises) as well as chant settings of the Sanctus and Agnus Dei chanted in Latin.     Sixty-one years after Martin Luther nailed his famed “ Ninethy-Five Theses ” to the door of Wittenburg Cathedral on the Feast of Saint Wolfgang, the city’s patron, and the eve of All Saints’ Day, a man named Mark Roy was born in Sigmaringen, Germany. As a young man, Mark Roy earned degrees in philosophy, civil law, and canon (or Church) law. Mark Roy felt called to dedicate his life to the service of the Gospel and eventually began serving as a sort of itinerant preacher for the c...

During this Year of Faith, the theme of the New Evangelization has largely dominated conversations within the Church. I have been especially struck by how often the themes of mission and evangelization are misunderstood or ignored by many groups And, this isn’t necessarily a Catholic phenomenon; many Protestant communions shy away from the work of “evangelism” because of fear that they will be perceived as proselytizing or as having an out-of-check zeal. Beyond the fact that today (October 20) is World Mission Sunday , Pope Francis spoke about the apostolic nature of the Church in his most recent General Audience this past Wednesday. When   you also consider that these days the liturgical calendar has placed before us several saints who were missionaries and catechists (including Saint Luke the Evangelist , Blesseds Daudi Okelo and JildoIrwa , Saint Isaac Jogues and the other North American Martyrs , Blessed JohnPaul II , Saint John Capistrano , and Saint Anthony Mary Clare...

The Gospel of Luke includes a transitional text ( 8:1-3 ) that we might be tempted to dismiss because of its simplicity. Saint Luke presents Jesus, the itinerant preacher, travelling from village to village, “proclaiming the good news of the Kingdom of God.” Traveling with Jesus are the Twelve and a group of women, including Mary Magdalene, Joanna, and Susanna, among others.   That the evangelist includes the names of these women is not an insignificant detail. Along with Mary (the wife of Cleopas), Salome (the mother of James and John), and Martha of Bethany, these women are celebrated as the “ Myrrhbearers ,” a name that honors the part they played as witnesses of the Lord’s Resurrection. Tradition holds that these were the women who prepared the body of Jesus for burial and who were among the first to announce the Good News on that Easter morning.   Myrrh, an essential element in preparing a body for burial, is a costly resin. The generosity of these women, whose ...

" Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, as in all wisdom you teach and admonish one another, singing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God."— Colossians 3:16 Although this admonition from Saint Paul is not among the readings that may be used for Masses in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary, as I reflected on today’s Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, they seemed to reflect Mary’s engagement of God’s Word, both as the Mother of Christ and as a woman of faith. Recently, Pope Francis reminded us that Mary faced life’s journey with “great realism, humanity, and practicality.” While the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary most often invites reflection on Mary’s contemplative spirit (which Blessed John Paul II highlighted in his Apostolic Letter Rosarium Virginis Mariae , in which he introduced the new “ LuminousMysteries ”), this title of Mary reminds us that she was a woman of active faith, a faith which took her infinitely beyond the...

The end of September and beginning of October are marked by a series of memorials and commemorations that serve to highlight the catholicity of the Church. From the Bohemian ruler Wenceslaus and the Filipino layman Lawrence Ruiz (a husband and father) and his martyred companions from Japan (on September 28) to the great biblical scholar and Father of the Church Jerome (on September 30), the cloistered missionary-at-heart Thérèse of Liseux (on October 1) and Carthusian founder Bruno (on October 6), to the Indiana foundress Theodora Guerin (on October 3) and the Louisana pastor and missionary Francis Seelos (on October 5) to the beloved Francis of Assisi (October 4), these days (which also include celebrations of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel, and Raphael [September 29] and the Guardian Angels [October 2]) remind us that the possibility for true holiness isn’t limited to one way of life, gender, or historical epoch. Saint Theodora Guerin (d. 1856) The Foundress of the ...

There is a well-known phrase that is often used as a sort of “proof text” against the vice of greed: “You cannot love both God and money.” At the surface, God and money aren’t incompatible. In fact, Saint Augustine even encouraged people to provide for their eternal happiness by using the goods of the earth (cf. Discourses 359, 10). But the parable of the dishonest steward, from which this quotation is adapted, doesn’t use the word “money” (which does appear in certain popular translations of Scripture). Rather, the word used in the parable is “mammon,” a Phoenician term for economic security and success in business. Reflecting on mammon , Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI said, “we might say that riches are shown as the idol   to which everything is sacrificed in order to attain one’s own material success; hence, this economic success becomes a person’s true god.”   The Dishonest Steward from  Evangelicae Historiae Imagines (1594)   More than just making an ...

There have been moments in the history of faith, which is at the heart of the human story, in which women, men, and even children, have made decisions about the course or orientation of their lives that have changed history itself. Like that “ shot heard ‘round the world ” of April 19, 1775, marking the first military action of the American Revolution, certain acts have opened up new pathways and modes of faith that have forever shaped the lives of countless believers through the ages.    The Calling of Saint Matthew by Caravaggio   Some of these might seem quite simple, perhaps because we know the stories so well: Mary’s fiat ( Luke 1:26-38 ), Saint Peter and Saint Andrew's decision to get out of their boat to follow the wandering Rabbi ( Matthew 4:18-20 ), and Saint Matthew leaving his tax collecting post (cf. Matthew 9:9-13 ). Others seem, somehow, far away and remote to us: Saint Lawrence presenting the poor, the Church’s true treasure, ...

On September 2, the Church commemorates 191 martyrs, commonly known as the "Martyrs of September," who were killed in four prisons in Paris, France, between September 2 and 3, 1792.  The Massacre of the Priests by H. de la Charlerie   Following the promulgation of the 'Civil Constitution on the Clergy' by the National Constituent Assembly (the government of the first stages of the French Revolution) in 1790, any cleric who refused to deny Papal authority and affiliate with the state-sponsored church in France was imprisoned as a traitor. All religious communities were dissolved by the government on August 15, 1792. Later that month, the citizens of Paris heard rumors of a possible invasion of the city by the Duke of Brunswick and of a mass breakout of those in its prisons, where the hundreds of clerics who refused to take the oath of allegiance were being housed alongside common criminals. Enflamed by revolutionary zeal, and unchecked by government authorit...

The man who would be known to history simply as “Saint Louis” was born in 1214 and became King of France in 1226, when he was only twelve years old. In 1234, he married Margaret of Provence and the couple eventually had eleven children. Known for his spirit of penance and prayer, Louis was mindful of both the temporal and spiritual needs of his family and his people. During his lifetime he was well acquainted with Saint Thomas Aquinas and other learned men of his day, and under his rule France experienced a cultural and spiritual renewal. Louis is also remembered for the construction of La Sainte Chapelle in Paris, which he built to house the relic of the Crown of Thorns.   In 1248, and again in 1270, Louis joined in the Crusades to the Holy Land.   It was during his second Crusade that Louis contracted dysentery, dying at Tunis on August 25, 1270, as he made his way to a battle. His relics were returned France and enshrined at Saint-Denis, where many miracles have bee...